Future-Ready Classroom Design: From Concept to Classroom

Despite massive changes in 21st century technology and lifestyle, student-centered teaching and pedagogy evolution, K-12 classrooms today look and operate much the same as they did in the prior century. Teacher-centric, row and column classroom structure, and associated furniture types, still widely dominate, mirroring the oratory-based ideologies of over 4,000 years ago. Future-ready classroom design is now ready to move from concept to the classroom.

Curating Classroom Space to Inspire Learning

Advances in understanding about learning environments and pedagogy have gained speed since the beginning of the millennium and have sharply accelerated in the last ten years. Flexibility, open space, user-centered design and a cognitive shift toward active and project-based learning opened up new ways of looking at teaching and learning. Still, in the United States we remain largely surrounded by education facilities sporting tools and teaching practices that match the ideologies of centuries ago.

Innovative designs that support active learning pedagogies have been shown to positively impact student academic engagement across all age cohorts, learning types, building configurations, furniture and classroom layouts. The West Shore School District in Harrisburg, PA adopted a change mindset and integrated the District’s pedagogical dreams with innovative future-ready classroom design and flexible furnishings to create a prototype school in Rossmoyne Elementary.

Tomorrow’s Future Ready Classrooms

Learn more about how future-ready classroom design can merge with educational goals to create learning environments that foster problem solving in both collaborative and independent ways and provide students the skills they will need in the workplace. Download The Design of a Future-Ready Classroom: When Pedagogy and Space Collide